Three quakes in just over an hour strike off Crete’s eastern coast

Three earthquakes kept residents in eastern Crete and the nearby islands of Kasos and Karpathos in the southern Aegean on alert in the early hours of Friday, though the tremors were moderate and did not cause any damage.

All three quakes struck some 30 kilometers off the coast of Zakros on Crete’s eastern tip. The first, with a magnitude of 3.9 Richter, struck at 4.16 a.m., according to the National Observatory’s Geodynamic Institute. This was rapidly followed by a 4-magnitude tremor at 4.24 a.m. in the same area.

The third quake was stronger at 4.5 on the Richter scale and came at 5.11 a.m., the Geodynamic Institute reported.

The European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) gave a higher reading of 4.7 Richter for the last of the three tremors.